Coursera Goes Public With IPO Shares Priced At $33

Online education provider Coursera was scheduled to go public on Wednesday (March 31) on the New York Stock Exchange. The company saw its revenues skyrocket during the pandemic, from $184 million in 2019 to $294 million last year.

Coursera announced on Tuesday (March 30) that it was pricing its initial public offering (IPO) of stock at $33 per share. That’s at the top end of the $30 to $33 marketing range it had sought.

In a press release, the Mountain View, California company said “the offering includes 14,664,776 shares of common stock to be issued and sold by Coursera and 1,065,224 shares of common stock to be sold by the selling stockholders.” The release also said that the “gross proceeds … are expected to be $483.9 million.” That’s not factoring in IPO expenses and underwriters’ option to purchase shares.

Coursera will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of common stock owned by the other stockholders. The offering is expected to close on April 5, 2021, subject to closing conditions. The offering was being led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs & Co.

According to Bloomberg, the IPO means that Coursera has a market value of about $4.3 billion, based on filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to PitchBook, Coursera raised $130 million in July at a valuation of $2.6 billion. Venture funders include New Enterprise Associates, Kleiner Perkins and G Squared.

While the pandemic saw a big boost to Coursera’s business, it also saw its net loss rise to $67 million in 2020 from $47 million the previous year, Bloomberg said.

More than 1.2 billion children around the world spent a good chunk of 2020 at home instead of in classrooms due to the pandemic, which has led many families to seek alternative education options. “We’re enrolling thousands of new students every day at this point,” said Outschool Co-founder Amir Nathoo in a July interview with PYMNTS. Outschool is a San Francisco-based educational subscription marketplace providing thousands of online classes on a wide variety of subjects